Thailand Military Culture Essay

II.2.2. Thailand’s Military Coup Culture against Western Democracy
The next norm that is as important as Thai Buddhism in Thailand’s politics is the military with its coup culture. This norm has a direct link to the third normative feature of Western democracy: control. As previously mentioned, control is as important as the other two elements in democracy and control is significantly required to ensure the freedom and equality that can be achieved by the citizens. To exercise control, Western democracy demands civilian control of military as Samuel Huntington’s writing in The Soldier and the State that summarized the ideal civilian control as “the proper subordination of a competent, professional military to the ends of policy as determined by civilian authority.” Meaning that in a democratic government, civilian political leadership holds the ultimate responsibility for a country’s strategic decision-making that includes control, instead of professional military officers. As well as Western democratic governances understand the importance of control, so does Thailand. However, Thailand’s understanding of the means to control is different from the

Therefore, it can be concluded that the physical features of Western democracy may be applied in Thailand since the country has adopted similar physical features, but the suitability of the normative features between both democracies are not in harmony that affect one’s perceptions about each other’s norms. Thai-style democracy should features elements that are viewed as compatible with the Thai environment; such as requirements for sustaining stability that should be achieved by upholding the monarchy, exercising military intervention, and adopting the hierarchical system, unlike the elements as suggested by Western-style